My Candy Love is an online dating sim that involves multiple choices and rewards depending on relationships formed with the characters. A few years ago I played this game constantly and was coming in every day to get my daily action points so that I could see what I could do next. Basically you woo the boys, make friends with the girls, and eventually unlock specific illustrations depending on which character you impress. One wrong answer will drop your affection, one right one will raise it, and you play through the basic high school drama.
Except that there is one big, big problem with this game. Before I get into it, you gain some energy and some money on a daily basis. Money can be used for buying clothing, but it also can be needed in the episode itself. Little trinkets bought in the storyline, like a CD or a bottle of water, usually run a small amount. At the end of an episode you usually have to buy an outfit for whichever guy's illustration you unlocked, which runs much higher, but at this point you'll have the money.
Before you mistakenly think that this is because the episodes are long, it is not. Many of the episodes are actually remarkably short with few decisions to make. Oh no, it's because of all the excess time that gets wasted in the process. See, let me explain; to continue through the game you have to do objectives in the story. Let's say you have to take papers to Nathan in the office and you're in the courtyard. It takes two energy to get to the hall and two to get to the office. No big deal, right?
Wrong.
See, you get ten energy a day, but every step takes two... So you get five energy a day and they absolutely do not refill before Midnight the next day. Not to mention there is a high chance that the character will not be there. This is a higher problem later in the game when more characters are added, because now you do have a chance to spawn others. So let's say the first time you enter there's nobody, then there's Melody, then there's nobody twice, then you finally find Nathan. That's fourteen energy, if we don't count getting there from the courtyard, and you basically did nothing.
That's on a lucky day too. Sometimes you can wander the school and look for someone so long that you run into other characters multiple times. I've done this so many times that sometimes the other characters simply stop giving dialogue and the random student I need to find is absent. It doesn't help that students' primary location may or may not move depending on the episode. It doesn't help that your choice doesn't matter on whether or not you have to sprint around the school.
In one episode a girl named Deborah comes looking for Castiel, one of the main love interests, and your character becomes suspicious and snoops. Even though I would rather snoop on someone else I get stuck doing this, and I feel both nosy and uninterested. Why can't it be a 'snoop' episode on whichever boy I want? Not to mention that this plot lasts, oh, five or so episodes for a character I really could care less about. Bad boys aren't my type.
There is a big narrative problem here as well, being that I can't choose which episodes I want to do. I know normally that's the point, but if I'm interested in someone else other than Castiel I have numerous episodes that focus on him and end with an illustration of someone else. Kind of pointless. The dialogue is also pretty alarming in two different ways.
Firstly, sometimes I'm hit with two equally offensive dialogue boxes and want to say neither, but can't. Your character by default is pretty outspoken, quirky, gets in the middle of things she shouldn't really, and seems to always say the worst possible thing even when you have a choice. It's hard to get invested in this girl, I guess her name's Candy, because she just screws everything up. I remember high school; drama existed, but I don't remember causing it constantly by saying the dumbest things.
Secondly, it's very hard to tell which dialogue options will help which characters. Sometimes they're obvious, but sometimes they aren't. Like Castiel, for one; one sarcastic answer will be the right one but then the next time you use sarcasm it rapidly drops his moods. Why? The same with Nathan, but his problem is three identical answers. Imagine having, "Okay", 'Yeah", and "Sure" as answers and having one wrong, one neutral, and one right. That's what a lot of Nathan's dialogue feels like.
And you're saying, "It can't get worse." But it can. One wrong dialogue choice can spell you not getting an illustration, and some of the choices are completely asinine. "Hey, X, right or left?" "Err... Left?" "Yeah, I knew you'd agree with me! Let's go outside and stand around." I find the most interesting illustrations are the holiday ones, by far. You can buy them with 100 AP or, you know, just be there on the holiday to unlock them. Some of them bring out really interesting stuff.
It seems like a lot of points, but if you break it down you get a good amount of content, especially since in these episodes you don't have to spend any extra AP, usually get an outfit, get an illustration, and sometimes even a bonus of some kind. For the same amount you can wander the halls. Trust me, I've spent AP easily. When I started playing the other day I had 100 AP for some reason and went through it trying to lead a friend to go to the teacher's lounge, find the teacher, and some dialogue options. It's sort of insane if you think about it.
There's also a few minigames that help you win AP. The first is a daisy petal minigame that nine out of ten times manages to fail. When it doesn't it usually gives only a little AP, literally. The other is whatever 'club' you get in episode three; gardening or basketball. Gardening is where you have to choose sprays and kill bugs while basketball is a pong clone. I chose gardening out of preference, but it's obvious that the basketball minigame is easier to get further in, which gives you more points.
As far as I'm concerned, there should be more minigames. They only give about four points on a really good day, two moves, so adding another minigame wouldn't be that bad. By which I mean one you don't have to pay for; you can play the other club game, but it will cost three points.
Then there's mortal pillow which unlocks at some point... Basically choose random moves and hope you win a pillow fight. Not fun, not interesting, and the points you need to win points are staggering. Even when the boards reset you find people in their hundreds after only a few minutes.
All in all, the challenges the game throws at you are not enough to keep you playing. Take it from me who played for almost a year and then quit without returning until now, at least two years later. The game is cute enough and the characters seem interesting enough, but that doesn't make the experience any better when you literally spend your days walking down hallways, searching needlessly for one specific character.
Play if you have incredible patience, but if you don't just avoid at all costs.
